


Watchdog

by sanctuary_for_all



Series: Partners [37]
Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bad Parenting, Danny has a lot of feelings about Doris McGarrett, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Feels, M/M, Many are violent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-12
Updated: 2017-05-12
Packaged: 2018-10-30 22:11:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10885941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanctuary_for_all/pseuds/sanctuary_for_all
Summary: Danny has some things he needs to say to Doris McGarrett





	Watchdog

**Author's Note:**

> I've been promising Danny this fic for just about three years now, so actually writing it on the third anniversary of the first fic I posted in this series - ["Swimming Home"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1605788) \- seemed like appropriate timing. (Technically, I promised Danny he could punch Doris in the face, but we eventually decided that would be problematic in several ways. This seemed like a fair compromise.)
> 
> Technically, this replaces 7X07, but anything you need to know about the ep is in the fic. The entire thing is wildly self-indulgent, but the truth is that this whole massive series is _also_ wildly self-indulgent. Honestly, it amazes me sometimes that you people are still reading it.

Though neither of them had a shred of Steve’s actual genetics, both Grace and Brandon had unfortunately inherited Steve’s deranged attachment to the ocean and swimming in general. Thankfully, they were usually willing to let Danny stay in his chair by the water, and compromised by coming out and giving him wet hugs on a regular basis. Danny had no problem with being wet, as long as he was wet on dry land, and only an idiot would say no to hugs.

That also meant, though, that it was Danny’s responsibility to force some lunch into the heathens. He was in the process of making a stack of sandwiches – no sense in trying anything more complicated when there was a chance they’d just take them back out into the water anyway – when the doorbell rang. A quick check revealed nothing more exciting than the mailman, so Danny answered the door. “If that’s the hood ornament Steve’s been waiting for, he’s out in the water with the kids.”

“It is for him, but I have no idea if it’s a hood ornament.” Kepano handed over the large mailing envelope, followed by the clipboard. “Whatever it is, though, it’s important enough that you’ve got to sign for it.”

Danny tucked the envelope under his arm, signing his best approximation of Steve’s signature. “You know this is technically mail fraud, right?” he joked, knowing the other man wouldn’t take it seriously. Kepano also hated pineapple on pizza, which meant that he was wise and discerning on multiple levels.

To prove that, Kepano just grinned. “Brah, you could probably sign ‘Danny Williams’ and nobody at the post office would blink. Everyone who knows anything about you two knows you’re joined at the hip.”

Danny shot him an amused look. “You’d better not let Steve sign for any of his birthday gifts.”

Kepano shook his head. “Not if you warn me they’re coming. That would just be wrong.”

When he brought the envelope inside, however, Danny’s good humor faded quickly. The envelope looked like it had been through hell, for one thing, and there was no return address. Danny carefully felt around the packaging to determine that whatever was inside was small and boxy, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t dangerous as hell. Clearly, work had followed them home again.

Danny hesitated, trying to decide whether he should run it down to HQ or if it would keep until Monday, when the handwriting caught his attention. There was something oddly familiar about it, and Danny mentally ran through any writing samples that had appeared in recent cases. No, it hadn’t been in a case file, it had been….

Swearing under his breath, Danny hurried into the living room and pulled one of the pictures of a younger Steve and Mary down off a shelf. He pulled it out of the frame, turning it around to see a date written in the same sharp handwriting as the envelope.

Damn it.

Setting the picture and frame back down, Danny returned to the kitchen and glared down at the envelope. Steve _wouldn’t_ want to get the team involved if it had something to do with his mother, and while Danny was more than happy to overrule him if he was being stupid there was no reason to call in the big guns yet. The simplest thing to do would be to just hand the package over to Steve, but there was no way in hell he was going to just stand aside and let Doris screw her son over again.

So he opened it, finding a cheap burner cell phone inside and a note inside that said “Press 1” in the same sharp handwriting. So, taking a deep breath, Danny did. After a few rings, Doris’s voice appeared on the other end of the line. “Steve, sweetheart, it’s been so—”

“This isn’t Steve,” Danny said, cutting her off. She didn’t sound desperate, which probably meant she wasn’t in the process of _immediately_ dying, but the effusiveness of her opening was a pretty good sign that she wanted something.

Plus, you know, the fact that she was Doris.

She was deathly silent for a moment, and when she spoke again her voice was all business. “Who is this? Where is he?”

The fact that her first thought was clearly some random spook, rather than Steve’s fucking _family_ , snapped the already thin leash Danny had on his temper. “This is his _husband_ , you lunatic. If you were hoping to catch him alone and marinating in his own sadness so you could take advantage of him, let me give you a newsflash – he doesn’t _do that anymore_. He has _us_ now.”

There was more silence on the other end of the line. “Danny Williams.”

He couldn’t detect any inflection in her voice now. He wondered if she was trying to remember him. “Yes, Danny,” he snapped, chest going tight when he glanced out the back door and saw his family in the water. “Is someone actively trying to kill you? Right this very second?”

Doris hesitated, and Danny had a gut feeling she was trying to decide whether or not to lie. “No,” she admitted finally. “That’s not what this is about.”

“Is it about saving the actual world? Or even a country?”

Another hesitation. “No. But there’s—“

“An orphanage full of innocent children?”

“No,” Doris snapped, apparently annoyed at him now. Then he heard her inhale, and Danny already knew he wasn’t going to like her answer. “I want to free Dae Won. Wo Fat’s father.”

Fury surged, sharply enough he could hear the “kill” sirens going off in the back of his head. If she was standing in front of him, he would have absolutely punched her in the face for even thinking about it. “So you avoid your son for _years_ , ignore _both_ times Wo Fat tortured him and tried really _fucking_ hard to kill him, _also_ ignore the time when the closest thing he had to an actual mother finally died of cancer, and then expect him to fly halfway around the world to help you ease your little guilt complex and free the father of the man who, let me say it one more time, _nearly fucking killed him_? _Twice_?! The same man who also killed his _father_ , your _husband_ , and who you couldn’t bring yourself to even shoot in the fucking _leg_ despite the fact that he made it clear how much he wanted Steve dead?”

“If your children—“

The words were shaky, which meant he’d struck a hit, but Danny wasn’t in the mood for mercy at the moment. “My children would not be fucking trying to _kill_ each other, thank you very much, because I wouldn’t raise them for years and then abandon them like a lunatic. And let’s talk about _your_ children, shall we? I know Joe gives you regular updates about Steve, because the poor bastard’s in love with you and cares about Steve enough to assume you’d want to know. But when’s the last time you checked in on Mary, hmm? Any idea how _she’s_ doing, now that Deb’s dead? Do you know a damn thing about what’s going on with—?”

Now it was Doris who cut him off. “Deb’s dead?”

The sheer surprise in her voice, as if this wasn’t the second time he’d mentioned it in the last 30 seconds, was like waving a red flag in front of a bull. “Who the hell did you think I was referring to? It’s not like Steve’s had mother figures coming out of the woodwork since you fucked off!”

Now he could hear the urgency in her voice. “If I stayed there, I’d be putting—“

And _oh_ , he’d thought about that, too. “You could have tried to communicate with them. Encrypted e-mails. The shit you just tried with the phone. If you actually gave a damn about your children, you would have found something. But we both know that the only reason you bother processing what’s going on in Steve’s life at all is that he’s useful, and you’ve completely forgotten about your daughter because Mary isn’t.”

“That’s not fair.” The words were thick, and if she was in front of him Danny imagined her eyes would be wet.

And if he thought she actually meant any of it, there wouldn’t be any need to have this conversation. “No, what’s not fair is how badly you fucked up two of the best people I’ve ever known.” He headed into the living room, staring at a picture of Steve and Mary taken the year before. They were making a sandcastle with Grace, Brandon and Joanie, and all five of them looked ridiculously lighthearted and happy. “Yes, John made some damn stupid decisions, but you clearly don’t give a shit about what you are _still_ doing to Steve. I’m actually glad you don’t give a damn about Mary, because that means she at least doesn’t have to fucking deal with you, but if you think I’m going to let you have free access to Steve you have no idea who in the _hell_ you’re dealing with.”

Danny would kill for Mary, the same way he’d kill for anyone he considered family. And he’d do a hell of a lot worse than that for Steve. This? This was nothing.

“Do you have any idea who _you’re_ dealing with?” Doris snapped, fury rising up in the middle of whatever other emotions she was feeling. Her voice was shaking. “You’re a _beat cop_. This isn’t a world you even _understand_.” 

“That’s because I don’t give a shit about it.” This was the voice Danny normally only used in the interrogation room, the one that had inspired one mobster to tell him he was working on the wrong side of the line. “All covert ops means to me is one more time that someone tries to tie Steve up and torture him. One more time I have to watch him shove the trauma down like it’s normal shit he has to deal with.” Danny’s throat tightened. “There is _never_ a good enough reason for Steve to get tortured, and the fact that you don’t seem to agree with me means you should really question your fucking life choices.”

There was only silence on the other end of the phone, and Danny pressed his advantage. “If you care even a little tiny bit about your son, leave Wo Fat’s father where he is and figure out some less suicidally stupid way of working through your issues. Steve deserves more than to have to worry about you, particularly since it’s clear you don’t worry about him.” He paused. “And before you make plans to somehow sneak all of this information to Steve without me knowing, that’s not going to work, either. Ever since he snuck off to Japan so Wo Fat could try and kill him, he’s required to let me know every time he’s about to go out of the country to do something stupid. As he followed this rule _before_ he was actually getting sex out of me, there’s no way you’re going to be able to talk him into dropping it.”

“He did this for years, you know, before he met you.” Doris’s voice was quieter now, but no less shaky. “He came back every time.”

The fact that she could sound so cavalier about how impossibly _lucky_ that had been was more offensive than Danny could give words to. “Then we’ll say I’m saving him from emotional suffering.” He scrubbed his free hand over his face, suddenly tired. “I love him, Doris, and you keep hurting him. You started hurting him long before I ever even found him, and there’s no way I’ll ever be able to make up for everything he didn’t have before I got here. How the hell do you expect me to feel about you?”

He heard her take a deep breath. “If you were in my place?”

Danny closed his eyes, deciding that Doris was the one person who wouldn’t flinch from the truth. “I would tell my family I loved them but I had to go do something dangerous. Then I would hunt everyone down who was standing between me and my family and shoot them in the head.” His voice was matter-of-fact. “Then I would go find anyone who might possibly think about hurting my family, show them the pictures of everyone I had shot in the head, and explain what their future was going to look like if they even looked at my family wrong. Then I would go home.” He opened his eyes, staring at his living room. “Was that what you wanted to hear?”

“No.” Her voice was soft. “But I asked.”

Danny sighed. “If I give Steve this phone, will you promise me that you won’t try to free Wo Fat’s father?”

She didn’t say anything for a moment. “Don’t give him the phone,” she said finally. “I’ll… find a less dangerous way to free Dae Won. But…” Her voice trailed off, then she took another deep breath. “There’s a journal. Under the floorboards of the room I used to share with John, just under the center of where the bed used to be. I want Steve to have it.”

“And you couldn’t let him read it at any point in the _years_ before this?” Still, the question was more rhetorical than anything. Clearly, she’d made her decisions a long time before Danny had gotten anywhere near the island. “Fine. I’ll tell him. Anything else?”

There was another long hesitation. “I’m glad he found you.” Then she hung up.

Danny finally pulled the phone away from his ear, shoving it in the pocket of his shorts and taking a few slow, deep breaths. He knew Steve would pick up on how tense he was the minute he got back outside, and if he tried to blame an argument with Rachel then Grace would get worried and ask what it was about. Maybe he could say it was a family thing—

“I’m sorry.”

Danny jumped at the sudden sound of Steve’s voice, whirling around to see his husband standing in the doorway to the living room. He had an open, raw look on his face, and Danny had a sinking feeling that it was already too late to put this discussion off until later. “Do I dare ask how much of that you heard?” he asked carefully, kicking himself for not hearing the fact that Steve had come in. For not sensing it, somehow.

“Enough.” He looked so _sad_. “You shouldn’t have had to deal with that.”

Which told him nothing, damn it, because even a little of that was already way the hell too much. “Hey, keeping you out of danger is literally what I do.” He moved closer, desperately needing to hug Steve. “Though if you want to overrule me on the—”

“No.” Steve leaned down, wrapping his arms around Danny and holding on tight. “She called me because she needed help with Wo Fat’s father, didn’t she? Not because she actually wanted to talk to me.”

Danny tightened his arms around Steve. “She’s an idiot,” he murmured. “She has no idea what she’s missing.”

Steve pressed his face against Danny’s hair, breathing in deep. Then he pulled back, stopping long enough to give Danny a quick, fierce kiss before straightening completely. “Well, I’m not dumb enough to miss the rest of our Saturday. What do I have to do to get you back outside with us?”

They were almost through with the sandwiches when Grace showed up at the back door. “What’s taking you guys so long?” she asked, Brandon in her arms and a worried look on her face. “Is everything okay?”

“Uncle Steve and I were getting weepy over our amazing children.” Danny said easily, putting the second slice of bread on top of his sandwich. “It’s probably good you weren’t here. It would have been embarrassing for you.”

Steve smiled. “We decided we’d better get it out of our systems now, so we didn’t accidentally do it in public.”

Grace still looked suspicious, but Brandon was easily distracted by the sandwiches. Grace helped them finish while Brandon munched on pickles, then they all went back outside to enjoy the rest of their weekend.

**Author's Note:**

> Come check out my [original fiction,](https://jennifferwardell.wixsite.com/mybooks) my [blog,](http://jennifferwardell.blogspot.com) or say hi to me on [Tumblr](http://sanctuaryforalluniverses.tumblr.com)!


End file.
